Surgical procedures are frequently performed on human and animal body lumens. For example, laryngectomies involve the esophagus and the trachea. Such procedures often result in the formation of strictures of scar tissue as the surgical sites heal. In many cases, these strictures can continue to grow, progressively occluding the affected lumen(s). Attention to such sites is necessary to maintain the lumen(s) patent. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can cause such strictures to form, as can acid reflux disease. These also typically require attention.
In the past, surgical patients who experienced the growth of such strictures checked into the healthcare facility, typically a hospital or surgical center, were placed under anesthesia, and had their strictures broken open. This, of course, required recovery not only from anesthesia but also from the sometimes traumatic breaking open of the stricture. Such a patient might remain in the surgical center for several hours, or the hospital overnight. Usually, the breaking open of the stricture would be done by rapidly inflating a balloon of a balloon catheter which had been located in the stricture, either visually or by imaging means, such as X-ray, CT, endoscopy or the like. Alternatively, the surgeon might use a series of bougies, passing bougies of increasing size through the stricture until it would pass one of sufficient size to alleviate the problems associated with the stricture. This, of course, requires essentially continuous involvement by the surgeon as the bougies of increasing size are passed through the stricture, stretching or breaking it. The surgeon would then have to attend to whatever trauma resulted from this treatment.
In another tissue modification application, patients who are undergoing, for example, breast remodeling surgery, burn surgery, or other types of surgery requiring skin grafts, are often treated to produce the required skin, so-called autologous grafts, for the remodeling or other surgery themselves.